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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24615832">highschool crush</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Tiny Meat Gang (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - High School, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dialogue Heavy, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Texting, but only at the end</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:49:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,634</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24615832</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>none of this is cody's fault. not exactly.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cody Ko/Noel Miller</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>61</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>highschool crush</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>also <s>not</s> edited, still no regrets. i know i'm spoiling you, and it's bc i love you.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>nole &lt;3</strong>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>hey</em><br/>
<em>dude</em><br/>
<em>i wasn't really mad</em><br/>
<em>i'm sorry cody</em><br/>
<em>pls just text back</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>none of this is cody's fault. not exactly.</p><p>he couldn't have predicted that a little white lie would've snowballed this badly.</p><p>if anything, it was his parents fault. he wouldn't be in this mess if his mom didn't take that stupid job offer. if she hadn't, his parents wouldn't have decided to move the family to america.</p><p>if they hadn't moved, cody wouldn't have had to move schools. or move away from his friends. he wouldn't have to make a new friend group to adopt all of the introverted gays into. (that is of course assuming there are other gay kids - <b>holy shit</b>, if he's the only gay kid in this dumb fucking school he's going to lose his damn mind. he couldn't be the only one. it had to qualify as cruel and unusual punishment if he is.)</p><p>if they hadn't moved, cody would not have to take american math classes and learn to use whatever the hell they use instead of the metric system. and then lie about understanding it so he could spend more time with this cute guy - <em>noel</em> - in his math class who offered to help him with conversions.</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em> <strong>1 missed call(s) from:</strong> </em><br/>
<em> <strong>nole &lt;3</strong> </em>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>if they hadn't moved, he wouldn't be compelled to lie to spend more time with this guy, because he's just slightly kind of perfect. he's smart and funny and stupidly cute, and he doesn't fucking know any of that somehow. and cody can't tell him that, because that's not what straight people do. probably. cody doesn't really know what straight guys do. at his old school, cody didn't have a lot of straight friends - oh yeah...</p><p>noel also didn't know cody is gay. in fact, cody specifically told him he wasn't gay.</p><p>so, there's that little (or not so little, whatever) white lie to add to this mess.</p><p>ok, so, correction - cody couldn't have predicted that <em>two</em> little white lies would've snowballed this badly.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <strong>nole &lt;3</strong>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>cody</em><br/>
<em>please</em><br/>
<em>i wasn't actually mad</em><br/>
<em>just annoyed i promise</em><br/>
<em>please just talk to me man</em><br/>
<em>i'll hear you out dude<br/>
just give me a chance</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>maybe everything would be slightly less awkward for cody if noel knew cody was gay, but cody doesn't really know how to come out. he never really has before. he didn't need to. cody wasn't flamboyantly gay, a blatant stereotype, or anything like that. (if anything it's the opposite. he's a very stereotypical straight boy next door type - athletic, funny, positive, always going out of his way to help people. there were many girls who were very disappointed to find that he's gay.) cody just tended to hang out with the other gay kids at his school, so obviously his friends knew. he didn't really say anything to his family either - he just brought home a boyfriend one day, and they either silently accepted it or chose to ignore it.</p><p>it'd probably also be easier if he'd stopped lying about being bad at math. cody's not a genius or anything, he gets confused pretty easily with mental maths, but other than that he's generally pretty decent at math. always got good grades without trying that hard, which makes this more than a little pathetic.</p><p>it's gone from pretending to be kind of confused about conversions to completely lying about understanding most of the concepts covered in class. cody really doesn't give a shit that he literally listens to every math lecture twice because the second time it comes out of noel's mouth. he'd listen to that boy say anything.</p><p>and if keeping up these two small lies was the price of getting to hear the audible equivalent of gold that was noel's voice more, it was a price cody was more than willing to pay.</p><p>but, when cody thought about the entire situation he found himself in, he was always confronted by how... <em>desperate</em> he was. cody always prided himself on the fact that he wasn't just some boy crazy teenager. and that was becoming increasingly difficult as his little thing for noel was turning into a something of a crush. or maybe he was just now realizing this crush he's had for a while. either way, there were feelings. they weren't easy to ignore. and noel was starting to notice something was up.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <strong>nole &lt;3</strong>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>i don't fucking care if you lied</em><br/>
<em>just talk to me cody</em>
</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em> <strong>3 missed call(s) from:</strong> </em><br/>
<em> <strong>nole &lt;3</strong> </em>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>probably because cody stopped listening to noel; favoring to absentmindedly stare at him instead. it was around the fifth time noel had to repeat himself that he actually called cody out on it.</p><p>cody was beyond flustered. he tried to save himself embarrassment by paraphrasing the section they'd just went over. they weren't at the section cody thought they were, yet. noel was very confused and cody left noel's house as quickly as possible.</p><p>sure, noel wasn't going to put it all together in those few moments, but as much as he'll tell you otherwise, noel's not an idiot. he will figure it out and cody doesn't want to be there when he does. explaining that he lied to be near him, he can handle that. what he can't handle was explaining why he wanted to be near him. he couldn't handle coming out.</p><p>he didn't know how.</p><p>so, he didn't.</p><p>cody just left. he went home, and for once he couldn't be happier that his parents worked late. he didn't want to answer any questions. all he wanted to do was curl up in bed and ignore the ever-growing number of message notifications from noel. and he did. he shoved his phone under his pillow and pulled his covers over his head and just laid there.</p><p>he was scared to read those texts or respond to noel's calls. he knew he had to respond eventually. even if he could ignore calls and texts, cody couldn't avoid noel forever. they had a lot of the same friends too, he was sure they'd notice if things were suddenly weird between them. they were also in most of the same classes and he couldn't just skip school. (cody was sure his parents would kill him if he skipped.)</p><p>so, yeah, this had to be confronted at some point. and that some point had to be soon. he still had school tomorrow and he'd rather not deal with this shit at school.</p><p>after a bit, cody worked up the courage to pull his phone back out from under his pillow and opened it.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <strong>nole &lt;3</strong>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>this doesn't have to change anything</em><br/>
<em>it's fine man</em><br/>
<em>just</em><br/>
<em>call me</em><br/>
<em>please?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>ok</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>cody tapped on noel's contact and called him. noel picked up immediately.</p><p>"hey, man. are you, uh- how, um... i don't know what to say. i'm surprised you called."</p><p>"oh."</p><p>"no, don't get me wrong, bro, i'm happy you did, like really happy. i just didn't think you would."</p><p>"i didn't think i would either."</p><p>they stayed quiet for a few moments. cody really hoped noel would say something before he opened his own mouth, because he's not sure he could shut up of he started talking.</p><p>and whatever god or deity or maybe just the universe - whatever the fuck was up there must've heard his prayers and decided to grant him this one mercy, because noel started: "y'know if you didn't need help in math anymore, you could've just said something."</p><p>"what?"</p><p>"i know you have this thing about, like, hurting people's feelings. like, i know you hate doing that shit and always feel really bad about it, but it's just math, dude. i really wouldn't have cared-"</p><p>"i never needed help with math."</p><p>"<em>huh?</em>"</p><p>cody repeated himself. "i didn't need help with math. like, at first i did, with conversions and stuff, but I got the hang of that pretty quickly. i didn't need help after that, i just, uh..."</p><p>"wanted to hang out? we still could've still hung out, man-"</p><p>"no!" cody rushed out. "it wasn't like that. well, it kind of was. but it's different kind of. i just-" cody paused. what was he going to say? <em>i really like hearing you talk and hanging out with you is always fun, but we can't hang out how I want to hang out, because i have a huge big gay crush on you and i want to hang out as boyfriends not friends</em>? no, he was not. "-it's just different."</p><p>"how is it different?"</p><p>"i don't know."</p><p>"how do you not know?"</p><p>"i don't know, noel. it's just different because it just is. i don't know, i just don't fucking know!" he hated that.</p><p>"ok, ok. it's fine, bro, you don't have to know."</p><p>"i'm sorry." he hated that he was being a dick and noel was the one comforting him.</p><p>"cody, it's fine."</p><p>"no, it's not! it's not fine and it's not fair. i've been a really shitty friend, noel. i don't need help with math. i just like being around you. i like <strong>you</strong>."</p><p>
  <em>fuck.</em>
</p><p>"oh."</p><p>"yeah."</p><p>"i like you too."</p><p>"i don't think you get it, i like, like you in a... not-friend way. a more than just friends way."</p><p>"yeah, i got that. i mean, i like you in a not-friend way, too.</p><p>"like, actually?"</p><p>"yeah, '<em>like, actually</em>', dude." noel imitated him.</p><p>"so, uh, are we, should we-"</p><p>"want me to come over? we can talk about all this shit in person."</p><p>"are you sure?"</p><p>"i mean, you also left without all your school shit and i'm not lugging both of our shit into school tomorrow."</p><p>"oh, uh, yeah. ok, yeah, come over, then. wanna stay over? my parents aren't home."</p><p>"yeah, man. see you in twenty, cody."</p>
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